I believe in fairies

It was my niece's 5th birthday on the weekend. My sister organised a birthday party in the local park in Berry. It was a beautiful day.



Anna had wanted to put on a show so she asked everyone to bring some dress up costumes and musical instruments. Anna's friends didn't disappoint. They came as pirates, they came as princesses, they came as fairies, they came as vampires. And woe betide the man that failed to recognised which was which. There's nothing quite like being given the cold shoulder by a five year old.

ME : Oh look at you! Great costume. What have you come as?
CHILD stares at me mutely like I've stolen his lolly bag.
ME : Oh I know! You're stuntman!
CHILD stares at me in disgust.
ME : No? Wait, I got it! You're... batman!
CHILD now looks like he might vomit on me.
CHILD's OLDER SISTER : He's a vampire.
ME : Oh... yeah... Silly me.
The children run off and I'm left to wonder how I was meant to get "vampire" from a cape and a tshirt that says, "I'm a stuntman".

This little guy was my favourite though. He was obviously someone's younger brother who, in return for being allowed to tag along with his older sis', had been made to wear the only remaining costume in the household, which just happened to be a red and green fairy costume. Far from letting the costume get him down, he worked it, charging around the park, getting some sweet fairy milage out of those wings.

wipe your face

It All Starts With One

I've posted about Norwegian-born/Swedish-based singer Ane Brun before on this blog. I can't help but have a soft spot for her. Well, she has recently finished a tour of the US, including a magical performance at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, which took place in the middle of an electrical storm.

Brun is now back in Sweden and looking forward to the release of her new album, "It all starts with one". This clip is the first single from the album, "Do You Remember". The video is directed by Brun's partner, Magnus Renfors, (another creative couple!) and is the first chapter of a short film featuring four songs from Brun's forthcoming album.

Silver Cinder @ The Vanguard

Some shots of our recent gig at The Vanguard. Thanks very much to Peter Pigott for these photos. Thanks also to everyone that came down to see us. We had a great time!












www.myspace.com/silvercinder

Mr Little Jeans covers Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

If you've ever listened to Guy Garvey's Finest Hour, you'll know that he has a segment called, "It was moider" which essentially involves him exposing the criminal act of bad musical covers. Every week he provides an example of a beautiful original song that has been criminally abused by a band trying to cover it. As the offending song starts to play, Guy always growls in his worst Brooklyn cop accent, "IT WAS MOIDER!" The worst offenders always tend to involve boy bands covering old soul numbers and it's usually at this point that I find myself wondering why we don't yet have a statutory death penalty provision that is applicable to all current and former boy bands members.

Anyway, if there were an opposite version of that segment, maybe this song would feature on it. Every now and then a band puts out an album that you think pretty much nails perfection. For me, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs was that album. So trying to cover perfection is, in my opinion, pretty ballsy! But the mellifluous strings and underwater sub give this song an extra sense of regret/sadness/nostalgia.

Every time I hear this song, I want to be back in my apartment in Paris, the lights down and the volume up, with a glass of red in my hand, as I watch the moon bounce off the sea of silvery-grey roofs from my sixth floor window.

Turn up the bass.

Gotye - Somebody that I Used to Know

This song has exploded in Australia recently. I don't think I've ever heard a song and so instantly thought, "this will be massive." The album isn't out until August 19, but it's so catchy that it already feels like a bit of a classic. In fact, I hesitated posting it here, because even though it's only been on the radio for the last couple of weeks, it has received so much airplay that it already feels a little "old news"! As much as I love it, it did feel very poppy, very quickly. It seems Gotye felt the same way when he wrote it.

Anyway, I'm posting it here because it's Australian music and because this is the third album from Gotye, so any mainstream success he gets is, in my opinion, thoroughly deserved.

I played this song to my mum, (the ultimate critic) and when the chorus kicked in she simply nodded and said, "Hm. Good song". You know you've got a mainstream hit when you can get a head bob out of a 65 year old woman who grew up on a stiff music diet of The Beatles, The Seekers and Bob Dylan.

Anyway, I digress. Enjoy!

Ps. If you're interested in listening to the whole album, it's streaming here for free until 22 August

Silver Cinder play The Vanguard

Tam and I are playing The Vanguard on Wednesday 10 August as part of our official Silver Cinder EP launch. Keep an eye out for some of our posters around town, and maybe even some airplay on FBI. If that doesn't excite you, the 10th also happens to be my birthday. So there'll be double the reason to celebrate!

We've got some old friends to play with us this time (Matt Chee on trumpet and Tegan Yue on violin and tambourine) and singer-songwriter Michael Pigott is playing support. If you haven't heard him before, he's awesome.

It might be our last gig ever as SILVER CINDER, so if you haven't seen us yet, or even if you have, we'd love to see you there.

Tix are $12/$8 conc. and are available at www.thevanguard.com.au. Otherwise they'll be $15 on the door.

If at this late stage you still need incentives, can I just say that there may be aspects of drum kit involved. And I might even crack open the electric guitar. That's right. We've officially gone to a little town called MAX!

Hope to see you there.